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The I*roclajm.atioii of" Emancipation. 



SPEECH 

OP 




CHARLES D. DRAKE, 



M 



DELIVERED IN 



^ 



Turners' Hall, St. Louis, January 28, 1863. 



Fbllow-Citizjens : Never has it been my duty to 
address a popular assemblage, under circum- 
stances more solemn and momentous than those 
in which the American people are now placed. 
Were I to give way to expressions of mere per- 
sonal feelings, it would be difficult to define the 
mingled emotions with which I have accepted the 
invitation to appear before you on this occasion. 
But I have endeavored to put aside all feeling, 
save that which yearns toward my beloved and 
suffering country, and every purpose but that 
which binds me, in life or in death, to her wel- 
fare and honor. 1 am no politician ; I belong to 
no party ; I have nothing to ask for myself at 
♦he hands of the people, but to be recognized as 
one ready to do anything in that holy cause, and 
to be anything that is farthest removed from a 
traitor, Lapplause] whether such as skulk from 
our soil, southward, to help slay their patriot 
brothers, or such as hang back under the folds 
of the old Flag, that they may, while enjoying 
its protection, more surely aid in betraying and 
dishonoring it. Between such and me, I thank 
God ! there is not, nor ever can be, any more 
concord than between fire and water ; but dis- 
cord, antagonism, and strife, now and evermore, 
until the venom of treasen shall cease to poison 
their hearts, and to fire their brain with parrici- 
dal madness. [Applause.] 

Indulge me, however, in a single remark as to 
my past position with reference to the subject 
which rises in this hour above every other — the 
institution of Slavery. I desire to preface the 
words which 1 deem it my duty to utter here, 
with the reiterated declaration, that I am not. 



nor ever have been, a fanatic against Slavery as 
a domestic institution, nor have I ever been con- 
nected for an hour with any party or association, 
which struck at Slavery in that character. I 
have always, however, believed Slavery a sore 
evil and a vast misfortune to our country, Lap- 
plause] and was ready to hail its removal by pro- 
per means, as one of the greatest blessings which a 
kind Providence could vouchsafe us. [Great ap- 
plause.] When, therefore, I speak as I shall 
to-night of Slavery, let no man say that 
I give utterance to any other than the opinions 
and convictions, which the horrid scenes of the 
last two years have fairly burned into my mind 
and heart, against the preconceptions of nearly 
thirty years. When I strike at Slavery, it is 
because Slavery strikes at my country ; and for 
that I would STRIKE IT DOWN ! [Immense and 
prolonged applause.] 

During those two years, we have witnessed 
the bloody climax of a conspiracy, begun 
in the preceding generation, to enthrone Slavery 
as a political power in this land, and to extend 
its sway over adjacent countries, in the 
wild hope that, in the grasp and under the 
lead of the indomitable Anglo-Saxon race, 
it might become — what it had failed to be- 
come in any other hands — a J'i'wer in the 
earth. It is too late in the day for 
the arch-traitor, Jefferson Davis, to delude the 
world with such lying words as those quoted in 
one of the resolutions reported by your commit- 
tee, affirming that he and his armies " are not 
engaged in a confiict Jor conqued, or for aggran- 
dizement." Does he comprehend the imiwrt 



J J 



-'Xj 7 (o 



of language ? Does he know what con- 
quest means? Does he suppose that the 
world has turned idiot, not to see that the South 
is aiining to strip by conquest from the United 
States a large part of its territory, three thous- 
and miles of its sea-coast, and the mouth ot that 
great Mississippi, whose waters roll iu ceaseless 
and stately flow past this city of our habitation? 
Is there no vision of aggrandizement in that em- 
pire of the " G'lldtti Circle," which, sweeping 
from the capes of Virginia down to Cape Sable, 
and careering around the shores of the ^Tulf of 
Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, was to plant its 
farthest standard in some yet unthought-of point 
in South American wilds ? And does he believe 
humanity in its dotage, that it cannot see that 
that standard is to be borne onward in its blood- 
stained march of piracy and subjugation, by 
Slavery and for Slavery ? No, my friends, he 
believes no such miserable folly. He knew, 
long years ago, and he knows now, better than 
any but his co-conspirators could know, that a 
vast EiiriRE of Slavekt was the promise of his 
and their treachery to the noble Repl'bltc of 
Freedom, which gave them birth, and nurtured 
them into men of mark, only, as time has prov- 
ed, that they might be more powerful and dange- 
rous than common men in their accursed trea- 
son. [Applause.] It suits their purpose to 
deny now what two years ago they defiantly pro- 
claimed ; bat men do not forget, nor can the 
world he mocked. The Ethiopian does not 
change his skin, nor the leopard his spots; nor 
have Southern traitors abandoned the infinitely 
atrocious purpose to destroy this blood-bought 
Union, for "the spread of Slavery." [Great 
applause.] 

Your committee have, therefaro, rightly judged, 
that in the very fore-front of the declarations of 
this meeting should be proclaimed anew the 
great and solemn truth, that it is SorruEKN 
Slavery, embodied in and acting throuch its 
lawless and conscienceless aristocracy, that has 
drenched this land in blood. [Great applause.] 
Why should not that truth be declared, not only 
here and now, but everywhere and ail the time? 
Of what avail is it to us, to our country, or to 
the cause of humanity, to bury it out of sight, 
and parade before our eyes some specious pretext 
for this rebellion, whioh we know to be false? 
Shall we fear to own the truth, because 
some muzzled traitor amongst us scowls in 
impotent wrath, or because his vote may some 
day be denie<l hs, for having been true to truth ? 
Let him who will sliirk this mighty issue; 1 
meet it, at all times and in all places, alike. [Groat 
applause.] II fliere was never before an occa- 
sion when it should bt- fairly and fearlessly 
met, that occasion is here and now. My voice 
is, and ever will be, that Southern Slavery alent 



is the cause of the horrible calamities of this 
civil war, [immense and prolonged applause,] 
and the human race in all the future will join 
without dissent in that verdict. I would say 
otherwise, if 1 could; but like Martin Luther be- 
fore the Diet of Worms, I answer: "uerkI 

STAND, I CAN DO NO OTHER ; MAY UOD HELP MB ! 

AMEN." [Renewed applause.] 

What then is the essential character of this 
war ? My friends, the judgment and conscience 
of the whole civilized world, when the question 
comes to be fully understood, never can be, 
never will be, aught else than that it is a 
war of the aristocratic against the democratic 
principle; [applause,] a war of an aristocratic 
form of society, resting upon and vitalized by a 
system of human slavery, against a form of so- 
ciety in which each individual is as free as 
every other ; a war based upon the sacrilegious 
idea that Slavery is a Divine institution, and 
that— in the words of Albert G. Brown, late Sen- 
ator from Mississippi — its "Ihsdnys slunUd he 
spread , like the religion of cnir BiviTie Mafter, to 
the vtterviogt ends ff the earth," [roars ef 
laughter] ; a war for the spread of those " bles- 
sings," not as " the religion of our Divine Mas- 
ter" goes forth, on the wings of a dove, bearing 
" peace on earth and good will tewards men," 
but as that of the False Trophet, with intoler- 
ance, wrath, fire, and sword ; a war, in one 
word, ot human Slavery, as a dominant and ag- 
gressive power, against human Freedom, as a 
bulwark of human rights— of Africanized Ame- 
ericans against Americanized Americans [im- 
mense applause]— of a proud, conceited, and fe- 
rocious aristocracy against the people here, and 
against all peoples, everywhere, that would be 
free. [Great applause.] 

And it is not a war of ti^day merely. It has 
already borne fruits which, for good or for ill, 
will never die. Were it terminated this hour, 
its influence must reach onward into the unex- 
plored future, blessing or cursing, freeing or 
enslaving, brightening or darkening, till the 
last hour of recorded time. There is no difli- 
culty iu deciding on which side is the light, and 
on which the darkness. It was the light of Free- 
dom which illumined the pathway of our fath- 
ers, in their mighty struggle, and in the forma- 
tion of that grand and unequalled fabric of (iov- 
ernmcnt w^e are now delending; and it is the 
darkness of Slavery under which that glorious 
fabric is now sought to be buried by its own 
children ! [Cries of "True," and applause.] 

The conflict is, indeed, irrepressible; as irre- 
pressible as that between good a«d evil, between 
right and wrong, between truth and falsehood, 
between Heaven and Hell. [Applause.] And 
who made it so ? None but they who made 
of Slavery "an image of gold," and "set it 



up in the plain " of the South, and because 
the North would not "fall down and worship 
the golden image " that this ISouthern "Nebu- 
chadnezzar had set up," decreed that this noble 
country should " be cast into the midst of the 
burning fiery furnace " of this cruel and devour- 
ing war. This, my friends, is God's own truth 
about this unnatural and amazing conflict. 
[Applause.] History has yet to record, that they 
who cast America into this furnace were them- 
selves slain by its " seven times heated " flame, 
while she "walked in the midst" with no 
"smell of fire" upon her resplendent robes. 
[Great applause.] 

If in this war Slavery was and is the aggres- 
sor ; if the war was begun and is continued for 
"the planting and spreading of Slavery;" if 
Slavery has become the "golden image " which 
the South bows down to, and wars with us be- 
cause we too will not worship it ; if Slavery 
feeds and clothes the armies of the South; if 
the Southern heart is envenomed against the 
North for the sake of Slavery ; if our 
free institutions, and all the hopes of 
ourselves and our children, are imperilled, 
that Slavery may be exalted, diifused, and per- 
petuated ; about all of which there is no more 
room for doubt, than there is to doubt that this 
war exists ; then is this nation bound to destrot 
Slavery, wherever it is in armed rebellion. 
[Terrific applause.] Turn which way you may, 
there is no escape from this alternative, ex- 
cept in cowardly and abject submission to the 
demands of the South. If you wish peace, it 
can be had to- morrow, by giving up all that 
the South exacts ; but for how long? Not a day 
longer than it would take the parties to prepare 
for a renewal of the conflict. Divide this great 
Interior Valley of North America, either North 
and South, or East and West, and there 
is no more peace. God has decreed 
its permanent dismemberment to be a 
geographical impossibility. [Applause.] From 
every State west and south of New England, ex- 
cept New Jersey, Delaware, South Carolina, and 
Florida, the Almighty has sent the waters of this 
great continent flowing from myriads of foun- 
tains down this mighty Valley, which must for- 
ever belong to one people, and share one des- 
tiny. [Great applause.] It is impossible for 
one people to own the trunk of the 
Mississippi, and a hostile people its mouth. 
[Kenewed plaudits.] There is no room foi two 
discordant nations between the great Northern 
lakes and the Gulf of Mexico. The same politi- 
cal institutions must prevail over that entire 
region. [Cries of "good," and applause.] While 
the South was satisfied to let Slavery retain its 
original character as a mere system of domestic 
labor, there was no more necessity for discord, 



than there is between me, a non-slaveholder, and 
my neighbor, a slaveholder ; but when the South 
made a political god of " the peculiar institu- 
tion," and determined, if Slavery could not ex- 
pand its dominion here, to rive this nation 
asunder, and take up its line of march through 
devastation and carnage to the final subjugation 
of the Western hemisphere to that institution, 
then it became manifest to reflecting men that 
the die was irrevocably cast, and that upon this 
generation was devolved by an All-wise Provi- 
dence tlie dire conflict between Freedom and 
Slavery, which is to decide forever the fate of 
America. [Applause.] Slavecy presents that is- 
sue at the point of the sword ; let Slavery 
PERISH BY THE SWORD ! [Thundering and long 
continued applause.] 

We have long enough struck blows as in 
dreams at this horrid revolt, and held back the 
home-thrust at its vital point. We have slain 
the soldiers of Slavery by thousands, but bowed, 
with hat in hand, to Slavery itself. [Cries of 
"That's so," &c.] We have braved death in 
every form for our noble country, but found it 
hard learning to brave the destruction of her 
relentless foe. We wielded every weapon against 
the rebellion, but the very one that would be 
fatal to it. We attacked armies of white men 
in the front, but left untouched a more numer- 
ous army of black men behind them, without 
which the rebellion would never have 
existed, or, existing, could not have 
lived a month. [Cries of "good," and applause.] 
While we fight the rebellion we must also watch 
foreign Governments, which, as we are not the 
subjects of a dynasty, but republican freemen, 
have no sympathy with our struggle for national 
life; but rather would rejoice at our humiliation 
and dismemberment, even at the hands of that in- 
stitution, toward which they and their subjects 
profess unbounded hostility. And so it would 
ever be, as long as we ourselves held Slavery too 
sacred to be assailed, though warring for our 
destruction. But when we learn to treat Slavery 
as a Constitution-breaker,'a traitor, a marauder, 
a pirate, and a disturber of the peace of nations, 
and pronounce for its extirpation because it is 
all these, then we touch the world's heart, and 
the popular voice in other lands will be heard, 
in tones which no government, however despotic, 
will dare defy. [Immense applause.] 

That time has come— that lesson has been 
learned. On the first day of January, in this 
year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred 
and sixf.y- three, the President of the United 
States, " by virtue of the power in him vested, 
as Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy 
of the United States, in time of actual armed 
rebellion against the authority and Government 
of the United States, and as a fit and necessary 



war measure for suppressing said rebellion," ment as to the expediency of sach a measure, 
did, by a solemn Proclamation, "aver and declare | this is not the time to moot that point. The 
that ail peTi^ons held as slaves within designated \ qnesiion is not. Shall the act be done? It is 



Statts and parts of States, abb, and hbkcefok- 
WARD SHALL BR FREE, [tbunders of applause] and 
that the Axecutiue Government of the United 
States, inclitdmg tJie military and naval 
authi/ritiee tJureuf, toill recognize and main- 
tain <A# freed</moJ said persona." [Renewed ap- 
plause.] Upon this act, which the President 



done! [Cries of "Good, good," and applause.] 
The point is. Will you stand up to It like pa- 
triots, or will you falter in your devotion to the 
Union, because henceforth its flag is to carry 
freedom to the slaves that make the very thews 
and sinews of the rebellion? 
Do you withhold approval because you do not 



declares is " sincerely believed to be aa act of see that the Constitution authorizes it? Then 
justice, warranted by the Constitution— upon j take that instrument, and read and study every 
military nece-ssity — he invokes the considerate ! line and word of it, and find, if you can, one 
judgment of mankind, and the gracious favor of syllable that restrains the Commander-in-Chief 
Almighty God." ] of the Army and Kavy, in keeping his sacred 



My friends, if any words have, in the history 
of the world, emanated from the ruler of any 



oath "to preserve, protect, and defend the Con- 
stitution," from the exercise to the very last de- 



people, which had a more ausjust and enduring i gree of the war power of the nation, against the 
import than those, I know not of them. An in- nation's enemies inarms. [Rapturous applause.] 
voluntary feeling of awe rises within me as I Our fathers did not make that Constitution as a 
read them, and endeavor to scan their probable , shield to its foes; and none but its foes now de- 



iafluence upon the future of America and of hu- j 
manity. They ring out the glad peal of this 
nation's deliverance, or toll the knell of its 
downfall. Not because the fate of the American 
people depends upon the mere question 
whether some millions of negroes shall be 
held in slavery in a portion of our domain ; 
but because it does depend upon the question 
whether the masters of those negroes — a meagre 
minority of this nation — shall, over the ruins of 
our glorious patrimony of Freedom, erect an ag- 
gressive, warlike, and ruthless Empire of Slavery. 
[Applause.] That is the vast and momentous 
issue which this Proclamation lays before the 



mand its protection against the power of the 
Government, wielded to preserve its own life. 

Do you hold back because you do not perceive 
the necessity lor the step ? But the Commander- 
in-Chief, surveying the whole field of the rebel- 
lion, in its cause and probable results, and in its 
relations to this country and to other countries, 
did consider it necessary, and it was for him 
ahmt to judge. Will you revolt against his 
'udgment? ["No! no! no!"] 

Are you in doubt as to the efiiciency of the 
measure? What avail such doubts? Do they 
promote the Union cause ? Do they make you 
any better patriot? Does your devotiun to your 



American people and the world, and concerning i country recruit itself from their companionship ? 



which the President of the United States " in- 
vokes the considerate judgment of mankind." 
As a part of that people we have met to express 
our juilgment of his act. It is our high privi- 
lege and our duty to do so. Not that our action 
can give it additional elfect ; but, as ours is a 
Government of the people, that he may see — 
that all men may see, whether we are 
for or against this blow at the enemies 
of our country. And now, my countrymen, 
with as deep a sense as I ever eutertained of the 
importance of a right judgment in reganl to any 
question of public inomeut, 1 hesitate not to de- 
clare my firm and unquestioning conviction, 
that that Proclamation was Co-sstititionai., r.x- 
PKDiENT, AND jiHT, and ought to be enforced with 
all the strength of the -Army and Navy of the 
United States, to the end that the power of South- 
ern traitors shall be broken, shattered, and 
crushed, for ever and ever! [Immense, long- 
continufMl, renewe<l, and p^olon^'ed aj>pl:iu?e.] 

I am not unaware that there are true Unionists 
who do not approve the action of the President. 
To such I would say, whatever your pastjudg- 



Nay, is it not weakened by their presence? 

Do you say, " What is the use of the Proclama- 
tion, when we hare not possession of the regions 

I in which it is to operate, and it is therefore pow- 

I erless ?" I answer, that the sameicourse of rea- 
soning would enervate every blow; for Omnis- 

I cience only can foresee whether any blow will be 

I effectual or not. It is not for those aiming it to 
decide in advance that it will fail. So to decide 

I is to insure failure. 

' Do you shrink aghast from the picture which 
rushes upon your vision, of the maddening hor- 
rors of a servile insurrection? So do 1, and so 

1 does every man with the least spark of human- 

I ity in his nature: but if such an insurrection 
follows the promulgation of a measure that is 
demanded to save the life of the nation, let the 

' dread responsibility rest where, before God and 
men, it rightfully belongs — upon those whose 
treason creates the terrible necessity. [Ap- 

' plause] 

I Are you troubled to know what shall be done 
with the millions of Southern negroes after they 

I become free? I answer, that is not the present 



question ; but Wliat shall he done with this rebel- 
lion? [Immense applause.] Soldiers ask not 
in battle, " What shall we do with the 
prisoners and the spoils when the fight 
is over?" but, "How shall we whip the 
enemy?" [Thunders of applause.] To debate 
what shall become of the negro, is to put that 
problem in the scale against your country's life, 
whether you intend it or not. [Cries of " Never. "] 
Leave the future to the future : the present is our 
care. The instant demand of this hour is, by 
every available means, to overwhelm, scatter, 
rout, and destroy traitors. [Cries of " That's 
it," "That's it."] Self-preservation demands 
that Slavery, their idol, and the right arm of 
their power, be wrested from them ; for their 
feet are on a war-path, to which we can see no 
end, while Slavery bears them onward. The des- 
tiny of the enfranchised negroes none but God 
can appoint : leave it, then, to His all-ruling 
Providence. 

But there are those who see in this measure 
only a deeper embitterment of the South, and an 
increased hopelessness of restoring the Union. 
Is that true? What hope has there ever been 
since Sumter fell, that the Union would be pre- 
served, otherwise than by the resistless agency 
of powder, ball, and bayonet ? Is there a human 
being who still hugs the delusion, that peace is 
to smile upon this country again as a united 
country, except by the subjugation of this 
damnable rebellion ? [Great applause.] If 
there is, let him drop that folly from his embrace, 
and open his eyes to the utter hopelessness of 
every attempt to conciliate that aristocracy, 
which, with a deliberate purpose, formed in 
some Southei'n minds fifty years ago, and con- 
trolling Southern action with steady sway 
through the past thirty years, resolved that this 
Union should be relentlessly destroyed, and sup- 
planted in that fair Southern clime by " a Con- 

FEDKRACY OF SLAVEHOLDlNa STATES," tO be, aS 

they fondly hoped, '' the most important among 
the ruitii 'Hit if ihf. world." Half a century's trea- 
son, plotted and pursued through every form of 
duplicity, falsehood, and treachery, and blazing 
out at last in robbery, fire, and blood, is not to 
be conciliated, but with the full fruition of its 
desperate schemes. This Proclamation, then, 
makes no more hopeless what was hopeless from 
the moment of the rebellion's outbreak. [Im- 
mense applause.] 

But, my friends, whatever the portents of this 
hour, in connection with this Proclamation, or 
with aught else under the sky, the true, ear- 
nest patriot ha-» but one line of duty, and 
that is, by every act, by every word, 
by every thought, by every purpose, by every 
power granted him, to hold up the hands 
of the President in this war against the 



enemies of our country and the destroyers of 
our free institutions. [Great applause.] As 
there is nothing in human history bo horribly 
atrocious as this rebellion, so the imagination of 
man can conceive of nothing which would so 
shroud the world in gloom, as the blotting out of 
this Sun of Freedom from the firmament of na- 
tions. Wreck this Republic, and you wreck 
every hope of freedom in every human breast. 
[Applause.] For nearly three hundred years 
the hand of the Great Creator has shaped the 
destiny of America, as the home of Liberty and 
the refuge of the oppressed. From every coun- 
try and every clime, from the heavy tread of 
oligarchies, from the sharp fangs ef despots, 
from the woes and fears of bloody revolutions, 
from poverty, heart-brokenness, and living 
death, millions have found here that freedom, 
which they sighed for as their richest boon in 
life, and the most blessed inheritance they could 
transmit to their children. [Great, applause.] 
Here has grown into gigantic proportions a na- 
tion, presenting the grandest development the 
world has ever seen of human intelligence and 
progress, and holding in its outstretched hands 
to all the earth the choicest fruits man has ever 
tasted of regulated and constitutional liberty. 
To mortal prescience that nation seemed im- 
mortal—those fruits perennial and un- 
decaying. But in the midst of peace, 
prosperity, and seeming contentment, all is 
plunged into confusion and dismay. The lurid 
cloud of war envelopes the land, the tread of 
armed legions shakes the earth, the thunders of 
battle fill the air, blood stains the ground, the 
groans of the dying fill the ears of night, and 
the wails of the bereaved rise to heaven from 
countless habitations ! What enemy has done 
this ? Have the despotisms of the Old World, 
tired of America's example and glory, massed 
their mighty columns to bear her down into the 
dust ? Has her ancient foe challenged her to a 
third war of Independence? Has any other 
nation invaded her peaceful shores? No, my 
friends ; would God it were any or all of these, 
rather than what it is ! [Applause.] Her own 
sons are her assailants ! Americans are 
pouring out the life-blood of America ! The 
heirs of liberty are destroying their precious 
birthright ! The children of the Constitution 
are hacking and [battering that glorious fabric, 
every seam of which was cemented with their 
fathers' blood, and every arch of which is vocal 
with the prayers and benedictions of the iUus- 
trious dead! [Applause.] And all for what? 
Who has oppressed, who wronged, them ? The 
voice of the universal brotherhood of man 
acquits this nation of wrong to them. What, then, 
urges on this demoniac onslaught? Let us not fear 
to speak the word again. Let us be true, though we 



6 



die for it! [Applause.] Speak it, write it, print it, 
proclaim it, that it is the akistocract of Slavbrv 
[cries of " that's it"] harliug itself against 
the buttresses of the Constitution, to clear it out ! 
of their pathway to empire ! It is the lust of ' 
power, the greed of gain, the arbitrary will of | 
inborn despots, that hurries them on to their i 
hellish work. Will they triumph? Not if the 
sons of America, native and adopted, are I'aith- | 



ful, and brave, and enduring. [Immense ap- 
plause.] And shall we not be so? [Voice— "We 
will."] Shall we falter in the trying hour ? 
[" Never, never."] Shall we fear to go forward ? 
["No."] Fear, ten thousand times more, to go 
backward a single step ! [Great ap])lause.] 
The Star of Hope leads onward ; then let our 
march and our ,'cry be onward ! ever onward ! 
r Immense and long protracted applause.] 



RESOLUTIONS 

Adoioted at the Meetini^ at Av^hicli the above 
Speech -was delivered. 



The loyal citizens of St. Louis, asEembled for the pur- 
pose of expressing themselves in regard to the Proclama- 
tion of emancipation, issued by the President of the Uni- 
ted States, on the first day of January, ltki.3, profoundly 
impressed with fUe solemnity of the occasion, and moved 
by a deep sense of the obligations of duty to our beloved 
country in this hour of its contest for life, against the 
iHost foniiidable rebellion that ever assailed any govern- 
ment, do unhesitatingly declare as follows : 

1. That it is a truth, which impartial history will afllrm 
in all coming time, that the institution of African Slavery, 
as existing in the revolted States, and constituting there 
the creating and sustaining power of an aristocracy of 
wealth, which determined to extend and perpetuate that 
institution, was the sole impelling cau-e, and has been, 
and is now, the life of the present infamous rebellion. 

2. That notwithstanding (he recent public declaration 
i.t Jefl'erson Davis that the rebels " are nulenyayeJ in a con- 
/iictforrontjUftt, nr Jut ai/fftayiiHtFini-nt," there is no fact 
more distinctly marking the rebellion, than its origin in a 
scheme for the expansion of Slavery, and its "eventual 
mastery of this whole continent," even at the sacrifice of 
those glorious institutions which our fathers bequeathed 
us, and which, in our inmost hearts, we hold a thousand 
times more sacred than any other earthly interest, and are 
deteniilned, eome what may, to preserve inviolate for our- 
selves and ourjiosterity. 

3. Thai the attempt to destroy the noblest institutions 
of Freedom man has ever known, for the sake of estab- 
lishing, extending, and perpetuating a system of human 
slavery, is a crime which there rre no adequate terms in 
language lltly to characterize, for its cruelly, its perlUly. 
and Its infamy; and the American Nation is solemnly 
biinml to the high duty of preveiiling that diabolical crime, 
at whatevercost of blooil and treasure, and if necessary 
thereto, to destroy the whole mass of those attempting 
its perneluatioii. 

4. That when the South, with such an object in view, 
revulleil fn.iii the CoiislitutiMii of its own formal ion, and 
raised the i>arrirl<lal hand against the riiinii it had volun- 
tarily entered, it was plainly impossiblo that pence •-..nM 



be restored to this land, except by the unconditional sub- 
mission of the insurgents, accompanied with an express 
and final abandonment of their base design; or by their 
absolute subjugation by force of arms ; or by the nation's 
ignominious surrender of itself to degradation and spolia- 
tion by an unprincipled aristocratic minority. We rejoice 
in the assured belief, that this mighty nation will not, in 
any extremity, consent to stain its glorious name with the 
disgrace of such a surrender to any power, or combination 
of powers, on earth. Audasthere is no evidence whatever 
that the insurgent Stales entertain tUe slightest intention 
of abandoning at auy time the pursuit of that nefarious 
object; but, on the contrary, as the head of the rebellion— 
speaking, doubtless, the sentiments of its leaders every- 
where—declared on the 26th of Deeember, 1862, in a 
speech before the Legislature of Mississippi, that, "tvere 
it ever to be projwttd uyttin to enttr into n union tcitli avc?i n 
peo^ile, heroulJno more content to do it tJian to trust himself in 
a dmof Hiieees;" we are forced to the conviction tbat all 
I eflortsat conciliation or arrangement are utterly futile, 
and that if our country is to be saved from the grasp of 
I the spoilers, it can only be by the prosecution of war 
I against them, in every form and to every extremity kiuiwii 
to civilized nations, fill the last vestige of rebel power 
i^hall be swept from the soil of America. 

5. That aside from every view of Slavery asa mere insti- 
tution nf domestic labor, and regarding it solely as an 
armed rebel, aiming deadly blows at our country and our 
noble fabric of Constitutional Republican Government, 
we hold that it has, by its ovn\ murderous act, totally and 
llnally absolved the American (Jovermnent and people 
from all obligation to preserve or protect it in the regions 
where the rebellion exists, and lias imposed, with all the 
powei of an irresistible necessity, the stern obligation to 
destruy it, if the nation would itself live. 

6. Hial to hold back from the destruction of Southern 
Slavery, while it is assailing the life of the nation, and 
while its three millions and a half of slaves, by laboring at 
home to produce food and clotliiiig for the rebel armies, 
nr.' HI eii.'cl, doubling the armed force of the rebellion, 



thus protracting through years of blood a struggle which 
otherwise might have been terminaled in as many months, 
cannot be defeiideii upon any ground of justice, expedi- 
ency, or Constitutional or moral obligation j and tan liud 
uo apologists but among those who prefer the institution 
of Slavery to their country, or those who delude them- 
selves with the fallacy, that, after years of civil war, the 
Southern aristocracy may be persuaded to throw aside 
their arms, and return to their allegiance, without accom- 
plishing that supremacy of Slavery, for which they be- 
came the matchless traitors and pirates of all history. 

7. That the. war power of the Nation in its exercise 
against its enemies, whether foreign or domestic, is 
wholly unfettered by the Constitution of the United 
States ; and the President, in time of war, is au- 
thorized, as Commander-in-Chief of the Army and 
Navy, to direct the exercise of that power against such 
enemies, their aiders and abettors, in such manner as in 
his judgment shall best tend to their subjugation; and that 
whoever invokes the Constitution with a view to tram- 
mel the President's action against such parties, is himself 
a public enemy, or deceived by traitors in disguise, who 
appeal to the Constitution, only to make it aid iu destroy- 
ing itself. 

8. That entertaining the foregoing views, and fimpelled 
by a solemn sense of the necessity which the South has 



itself created, to overthrow, its deadly attempt to plunge 
our country into horrible and irretrievable ruin; and con- 
sidering no measure too severe to be employed for 
that purpose ; and profoundly impressed with the belief 
that the destruction of Southern Slavery is indispensable 
to the salvation of our free institutions; and firmly hold- 
ing that the Proclamation of President Lincoln, issued on 
the first day of January, 1803, wherein, ■• atajH and neces- 
sary tear measure for .ivjtjireAnng said rebellion," he did " AVER 
AND DECLARE THAT ALL PERSONS HELD AS SLAVES 
WITHIN CERTAN DESIGNATED STATES AND PARTS 

OF States, are, and henceforward shall be 
FREE," was a legitimate and righteous exercise of "the 
power vested in him as Commander-in-Chief of the Army 
and Navy of the United States"— was imperiously demand- 
ed by the public exigency— and may be expected to even- 
tuate in the overthrow of the rebellion ; we do, without 
(lualiflcatiou or reserve, approve and applaud the issuing of 
that Proclamation ; and do call upon every patriotic citi- 
zen of the United States, whatever may have been his pre- 
vious views of the expediency of such an act, to accept 
it loyally as a thing accomplished, and to rally to the sup- 
l)ort of the President, in this great and vital blow at the 
only intestine foe that has ever dared to assail American 
free institutions. 



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